natural disasters

The Kīlauea eruption has generated extensive news coverage and UH Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology experts have been sought by local, national and international media to provide background and information.

An International Pacific Research Center study by Yuqing Wang, Jiuwei Zhao and Ruifen Zhan shows a strong connection between the Global Warming Hiatus phenomenon and changes in cyclone activity over the northwest Pacific Ocean.

The study concluded that with warmer sea surface temperatures, tropical cyclones become not only stronger, with higher maximum wind speeds, but also larger, with gale-force winds covering a greater area.

This editorial by Karl Kim was published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on September 3, 2017. Kim is the executive director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at the University of Hawaiʻi and is a professor in the UH Mānoa…